


Views From the Strip

by osunism



Series: Like Real People Do [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Pool & Billiards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:50:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6828346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osunism/pseuds/osunism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amamansa doesn't know how to relax without vices. Zaeed knows all about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Views From the Strip

The Silver Sun Strip is a riot of garish lights and color, a cacophony of voices from a dozen different races. She stands just beyond the terminal to summon a cab, and realizes how much she misses the quiet and efficient hum of the Normandy. Here, amidst the crowd, surrounded by the press of foreign bodies and sundry motivations, she feels exposed.

 _It’s just nerves_. She tells herself, but there is a war ranging beyond the cloudy veil of the nebula housing the Citadel, a war only she is fully equipped to fight. She feels guilty, standing there in her tight leather dress, stealing joy she feels she hasn’t earned when people are dying by the droves across the galaxy, harvested by an incomprehensible enemy.

 _You need to relax_. She tells herself firmly, _Take some time for yourself. Your. Self._

But all she can see is Thessia burning, Earth burning, Palaven burning, Sur’Kesh under siege, Tuchanka under siege, the entire galaxy looking to her for answers she tried to give them three years prior. All she can see is the galaxy’s axises of power crumbling before the relentless advance of Reaper forces. All she can hear is unending gunfire, drowning out the crowd, shouts for help, dying gasps and screams, grunts of pain as they push forward.

All she can remember is her failure in the temple, and Kai Leng’s sneering face.

“Hey!” A voice says behind her, “You getting a ride or what? Some of us have places to be.”

She turns, drawn from the ocean of her own mind. An irate turian is towering over her, and standing next to him is a slender human woman, both of them are staring at her, uncomprehending of who she is and what she symbolizes.

Little do they know, they may have just saved her sanity for another few moments.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, “kind of spaced out for a minute. Go ahead.” She steps aside, rubbing her arms against a chill not present in the Citadel and makes her way back to the apartment.

She strips out of her dress, and decides to try and read something that isn’t a news report or a field report. She tries to read and finds herself unable to focus.

Her private terminal dings.

She checks her messages. It’s Zaeed.

> _Shepard,_
> 
> _Saw you looking like a newborn varren in a room full of fire. Thought you could use some company. I’ve got a solution to your problem for once. It’s pretty goddamn effective if I do say so myself._
> 
> _-Z_

Amamansa smiles to herself, sends a message for him to come up. Zaeed is punctual when money is involved, but he takes his time anywhere else. She slips into a hoodie and sweats before he comes up. And when the door slides open, he’s waiting for her, a bottle of ryncol in hand.

“That your solution to my problem, Massani?” She asks, eyeing the bottle. Zaeed invites himself in as she steps aside.

“No.” He says, popping open the bottle and taking a swig, “It’s just mine. But you’ve got a goddamn pool table that hasn’t been used yet and I figured we could shoot something else besides guns.”

Amamansa raises a brow.

“Your method of flirtation is very obtuse, old man,” she teases and Zaeed glances over his shoulder at her once. There’s a smirk there, something of a memory. She’s seen him out of his armor more than a few times since they met. Her quips are love bites compared to the rocky beginnings.

“If I recall you found my methods downright charming, Shepard,” he says, “now are you gonna set up the pool table or not?”

Amamansa grins, walks purposely toward the game room. The pool table sits under a bright, low-hanging lamp, and the cues line the wall, neat and orderly.

“Come to think of it,” Zaeed says, setting his bottle of ryncol down, “I think you _did_ use this pool table once.”

“Twice.” Amamansa amends, “If I recall, you said we needed to put a little bit of sway in it...just to make sure all of our shots actually made it.”

The old mercenary chuckles darkly.

“And you bought that bullshit hook, line, and sinker. And an ass-slapping good time was had by all.”

She lets him have that victory, for now, swiping his bottle of ryncol for herself, earning a pinch to her rear in return. He aims a little too high, hits her lower back. She can’t feel it, having lost a cluster of nerves in that small area during her reconstruction. There’s more machine there than muscle and bone.

“You breaking, or me?” She asks, nursing the bottle. She can taste the remnants of a cigar on the rim. She vastly prefers the taste of it from his own mouth. But she’ll get to that later. Zaeed takes the liberty of setting up the balls, rolling them to and fro before centering them. Amamansa watches, dark eyes glittering. The ryncol slithers through the pipes of her veins, warming her all over. She can already feel her guard coming down. Zaeed knocks this shit back like juice, and she's convinced the man has a synthetic liver processing it as fast as he downs it. Try as she might, it's the one thing she can't beat him at.

"I'm a bit surprised," she tells him, trying to keep her words from running into one another, "last time you offered to play pool we..."

"Fucked like two krogan in heat." Zaeed finishes, "It was a goddamn good time, sweetheart. I hope you're not expecting a repeat performance."

Ama laughs. "We actually going to play?" She reacts quickly when a pool cue is tossed her way, catching it in her free hand. The ryncol is working, but not that fast. Being partially synthetic has its perks, after all. Zaeed is already chalking the tip of his own cue and lining up the cue ball on the other side. Ama watches him as he leans over. He's got that look on his face, the same intensity that she sees when he's got an enemy in his sights; brows furrowed, mouth set in a grim line, his eyes clear of anything but focus.

And then he breaks with the same precision as his shooting. The balls scatter across the green felt, and Ama briefly loses her self in the soft  _click-click_ sound of them knocking against one another. A stripe rolls into a corner pocket, a solid into a side pocket. He's saved her one ball at least.

"So," Zaeed says as she leans over to angle up and take her shot, "where the hell were you planning to go that you had to stand in front of a goddamn terminal staring at nothing for five minutes?"

Ama is briefly distracted, shoots too soon. The cue ball stutters across the table, breaks a cluster of balls apart. A solid rolls to a corner pocket and stops short before dropping in.

"I wasn't planning on going anywhere," she says, the ryncol making her tongue too honest for her liking, "I just...spaced out."

Zaeed sucks his teeth. "Bullshit."

Ama watches him take another swig of ryncol, then he sinks two stripes into a corner pocket.

"You're on shore leave, Shepard," he tells her, "a goddamn vacation if there were such a thing for you Alliance types. But you brought work with you, didn't you?"

Ama hesitates again, and sighs.

"Yeah," she admits, "I did. Not that I have a choice. Trillions of lives are depending on my ability to win this thing."

Zaeed snorts. "And you will. But you can't do that runnin' on empty, can you?"

Ama takes a shot when he misses his, sinks another solid. She takes another, and suddenly the pool table is a battlefield. She's back on Tuchanka, taking cover. Brutes are closing in, the Reaper is waiting for her to come out so it can fry her. She aims the cue ball, hoping to hit something, but she can't see because there's dust in her eyes.

"Ama!" Zaeed's voice snaps the memory like a rubberband and suddenly everything comes into startling focus. Amamansa swallows and stands up.

"Shit." She says, "Shit. Did I just...?" Zaeed is staring at her, and there's none of that humor in his face anymore, but there is concern. Ama eyes the bottle in his hand, reaches for it, and he lets her have it. She downs the remainder, bottom up, gulping it down.

Instantly, her nerves melt, her synthetic parts unable to process so much of the shit in time to stop it from settling in her systems. It rushes through her veins, makes her face feel light. She smiles, her memories slipping between her fingers like water. She thinks of Thane explaining solipsism to her, and laughs.

"Better?" Zaeed asks and she laughs again.

"Much."


End file.
